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I am a bride to be and seriously considering getting married on a cruise ship in the NY/NJ area. I got engaged last May on the oasis of the seas, and since then have been dreaming about having my ceremony on a cruise followed by a reception of about 100 people and having about 30 guests sail with me. I was pretty sure that I wanted to get married on the Explorer until I started reading reviews about their new Royal Romance Department and how hard it is to contact them. I sent them an email over a week ago and no response. Then I decided on NCL so I sent them an email ( TWE) last Wednesday, and no response from them either.

Should I be concerned? Is it really that hard to get an email response from a wedding planner? I am so worried and now rethinking this whole thing since it doesn't even seem like they want my business. I expect an email response within 48 hours so a week seems ridiculous! It is so upsetting bec I was 100% sold on the idea of a cruise wedding, and now I am not so sure. Has anyone had this problem/concern before, and any advise would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

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It sucks you're having issues getting basic information. I'm not familiar with either of those companies and their return correspondence policy, but I can tell you that Carnival has a firm 72 (business) hour policy and promise to return your calls/emails in that time period. Disney also responds pretty quickly.1

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I am a bride to be and seriously considering getting married on a cruise ship in the NY/NJ area. I got engaged last May on the oasis of the seas, and since then have been dreaming about having my ceremony on a cruise followed by a reception of about 100 people and having about 30 guests sail with me. I was pretty sure that I wanted to get married on the Explorer until I started reading reviews about their new Royal Romance Department and how hard it is to contact them. I sent them an email over a week ago and no response. Then I decided on NCL so I sent them an email ( TWE) last Wednesday, and no response from them either.

Should I be concerned? Is it really that hard to get an email response from a wedding planner? I am so worried and now rethinking this whole thing since it doesn't even seem like they want my business. I expect an email response within 48 hours so a week seems ridiculous! It is so upsetting bec I was 100% sold on the idea of a cruise wedding, and now I am not so sure. Has anyone had this problem/concern before, and any advise would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

 

Hi luvmysoldier07 - Sorry to hear you're having so many issues with booking your Cruise Wedding - Admittedly, TWE has been known to be a little slow on responding but I certainly wouldn't give up on the thought of a Cruise Ship Wedding.

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That is completely unacceptable! I have been in the tourism industry here in Napa for YEARS, and if someone was expecting correspondance from me, I'd make it a top priority. Especially in a market like this, business, especially repeat business, is a major factor in creating that "bottom line."

I too am a bride to be, I was proposed to 3 weeks ago aboard the Carnival Spirit (and btw, I too love my "soldier," ;)) Do yourself a favor and call Carnival. They were incredibly prompt, and do an AMAZING job! We've decided to get married aboard the Carnival Splendor next January. I can guarantee you that you will NOT, get a better deal or better service on another line. We are fairly seasoned cruisers 10+ now on Princess and Carnival, and Carnival's customer service is top notch. I've spoken with NCL and RCCL on several occassions while trying to plan a cruise and have always gone back to Carnival. I've had 5 cruises aboard Princess and even though you pay a lot more for them, you still get better care and service with Carnival. It took me years to figure that out, but now I flat out refuse to go back to Princess unless they offer me a free cruise lol.

I didn't even call their weddings department, I emailed them at weddings@carnival.com with a LOT of questions :D they not only replied within 48 hours, but they answered every single one of my questions and were eager to help further. I felt, even through an email, that I was receiving personal tailored service. They have been fantastic! Congrats on your engagement and please keep us posted on how it goes! -Val-

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I didn't have any problems with getting responses via email with Carnival. It never took them more than a day or two to respond to my emails. I'd rather communicate via email than phone. In the beginning of the process, the only communication I really had with them was selecting my options/upgrades, guest list, etc & emailing or faxing those to them. They'd email me each time they received my information. I didn't actually get a phonecall from them until the week before to confirm all my details. And honestly, it wasn't necessary to communicate with them any more. That's the beauty of a cruiseship wedding - not having to micromanage every step of the day.

 

If you're set on having a cruiseship wedding (and it sounds like you are) - I'd GO for it! Almost everyone that comes back rants and raids about how wonderful everything was! There's very few reviews I've read where there are complaints! Even though I had a few hiccups the day of the wedding, if I could do it all over, I'd still do the cruiseship wedding. We couldn't be happier with the decision we made! AND...still....all of our guests who came onboard for the ceremony/reception still talk about how wonderful everything was. Those not sailing with us didn't want to leave the ship!!! Good luck & Congrats!

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we have been dealing with TWE (with NCL)... we have also found that the response time has been a bit slow, especially when we first started the process. But they do get back to you when they can. Depending on what you want to do, I would suggest contacting a travel agent to help with the booking and communication since you want to have a lot of sailing guests. It has made things soo much easier for us. If we have any questions our TA can get answers much faster than we can. Overall thoough, we are pleased with how the process has been going so far, you have to remember that youre wedding dates may be very far away, and they are working with weddings that are happening THAT WEEK, or the next week, which would certainly recieve much more priotity than someone who is simply asking questions for an event that hasnt yet to be planned. one thing for sure, DONT give up on a cruise wedding! its been the most stress free wedding planning ive ever experienced, and I am a wedding planner myself!

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Why don;t you just phone them and tell them you are concerned and no one has emailed you back. This is going to be a very costly affair I hope your daddy is donald trump! and had alot of buckeroos. My daughters friend got married on the Ruby Princess Last year it cost her daddy well over 45,000.00 for just 30 guests that had a fabulous cruise on them. They did not want a big reception but had the wonderful 7 days of dinners with those people they love their family and friends. I see that you are concerned Call them... do not wait for anyone to email you, you will wait a long time.

Oasis of the Seas could not get any better than that.

My suggestion is to invite your friends and family on the cruise, take only 30 of them on the cruise get a deep discount for booking those rooms and have a ceremony on board at the church at sea.

then you can have your cake and a kiss or two.

so call them u be better off instead of going to wait for an email it will never take place good luck sweetie:D

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Thank you all for your replies. You made me feel so much better:)

A cruise ship wedding is my dream wedding, and I know everything will work out in the end. I am a TA so I already prepared myself for doing most of the work. ( pricing out and booking the cabins, making necessary changes, watch for lower rates ect) I just need assistance in the wedding planning portion.

My Fiance and I are paying for the ceremony and reception, and our guests who would like to sail with us will pay for themselves. I did alot of research and although Carnival weddings get great reviews it just won't work for us since they only permit 50 non sailing guests, plus they only offer 8 night cruises from NY which is too long for us.

Right now our plan is the NCL Breakaway for next June since it a brand new ship. I can't call NCL tomorrow, but hope to have time on Monday and finally talk to someone in their wedding department. I really think that talking to one of their representatives will make me feel better and confident with my decision.

FYI, still no email response from Royal or NCL. It is quite upsetting since I like to do most of my communicating through email since I work during the day. I just hope it gets better once I reserve my wedding:confused:

Again, thank you all for your responses. I really appreciate it

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I've only emailed the NCL wedding department once or twice, but have gotten pretty prompt responses back from them. My travel agent has also almost always gotten pretty quick information back from both the group travel department and the wedding department.

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Thank you all again for your suggestions! We are definitely going with NCL Breakaway. I contacted TWE and they were very professional:) and I even emailed them today with another question and I received a response back within 20 minutes!

We are so excited to get married on a brand new ship in NYC!

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My daughters friend got married on the Ruby Princess Last year it cost her daddy well over 45,000.00 for just 30 guests that had a fabulous cruise on them.

 

My suggestion is to invite your friends and family on the cruise, take only 30 of them on the cruise get a deep discount for booking those rooms and have a ceremony on board at the church at sea.

 

then you can have your cake and a kiss or two.

 

We just got back from our wedding at sea aboard the Crown Princess and (although we didn't have a formal reception) the price tag came in just under $15,000 for everything (dress, drinks, excursions, spending money, EVERYTHING.)

 

No matter what anyone says you DO NOT have to pay for anyone to cruise but yourselves. $45,000 to take other people on vacation is just ludicrous if you ask me. Those who want to cruise will do it (and pay for themselves), those who don't will still have the option of attending the ceremony if you do it on embarkation day.

 

I agree that you should call, call and call again until you get to someone who will help you but I DON'T agree that it should have to cost you an arm and a leg to have your dream cruise wedding.

 

Oh, and for the record, my "daddy" did contribute the cost of the ceremony and a meal in one of the specialty restaurants but we paid for a good portion of it ourselves. Now we're back and married with ZERO wedding debt and all of the $ we were given as wedding gifts safely in our bank account to use to plan our next cruise.

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I had a similar experience, so I don't know how someone spends $45,000 on a cruise wedding. I got married on the Caribbean Princess out of NYC and it cost less than $15,000 including the honeymoon. We had 78 guests, 75 non-sailing and it was terrific and did not cost a fortune. My parents didn't pay for anything. My father in law rented a bus to take the family from Philadelphia to NYC. We had our entire wedding paid off within a few months. It was reasonably priced and since you don't honestly get a ton of choices, the pre-planning isn't so bad. It's much less stressful than a normal wedding. If you don't want any stress, elope to Las Vegas. But if you can deal with some stress and want to be able to have a wedding without spending a fortune, then do a cruise wedding.

 

Also TWE always responded much better to me on the phone, so I'd recommend calling vs. emailing.

 

 

We just got back from our wedding at sea aboard the Crown Princess and (although we didn't have a formal reception) the price tag came in just under $15,000 for everything (dress, drinks, excursions, spending money, EVERYTHING.)

 

No matter what anyone says you DO NOT have to pay for anyone to cruise but yourselves. $45,000 to take other people on vacation is just ludicrous if you ask me. Those who want to cruise will do it (and pay for themselves), those who don't will still have the option of attending the ceremony if you do it on embarkation day.

 

I agree that you should call, call and call again until you get to someone who will help you but I DON'T agree that it should have to cost you an arm and a leg to have your dream cruise wedding.

 

Oh, and for the record, my "daddy" did contribute the cost of the ceremony and a meal in one of the specialty restaurants but we paid for a good portion of it ourselves. Now we're back and married with ZERO wedding debt and all of the $ we were given as wedding gifts safely in our bank account to use to plan our next cruise.

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I feel like having 30 or more sailing guests would have been way too stressful. We only had 6 sail with us and we felt like we were constantly obligated to have dinner with this couple then drinks with that couple and meet the third for an excursion the next day. I don't think I would have liked having more sail with us just because we would have never actually gotten any time on our own.

 

I too got a better response from phone calls vs emails so I also suggest picking up the phone.

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Hope you had a wonderful wedding, btw, Julie :)

 

I feel like having 30 or more sailing guests would have been way too stressful. We only had 6 sail with us and we felt like we were constantly obligated to have dinner with this couple then drinks with that couple and meet the third for an excursion the next day. I don't think I would have liked having more sail with us just because we would have never actually gotten any time on our own.

 

I too got a better response from phone calls vs emails so I also suggest picking up the phone.

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Hope you had a wonderful wedding, btw, Julie :)

 

Thanks! The ceremony was beautiful and I wouldn't change a second of it but everything that happened after it... not so much. Working on a review that won't send people running from cruise weddings. It's hard as there were a lot of negatives from our perspectives and a lot of things we would have tried to do differently.

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I feel like having 30 or more sailing guests would have been way too stressful. We only had 6 sail with us and we felt like we were constantly obligated to have dinner with this couple then drinks with that couple and meet the third for an excursion the next day. I don't think I would have liked having more sail with us just because we would have never actually gotten any time on our own.

 

I too got a better response from phone calls vs emails so I also suggest picking up the phone.

 

We were going to get married on a ship, then decided we could get much more for less money by getting married on land. We did a morning ceremony with a brunch reception, then got a charter bus to drive everyone to the port. We had about 30 people at the wedding and 21 of us sailed. It was awesome. The basic idea was people could do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. It was their vacation as much as it was ours. Most of us met for dinner every night (we had 3 tables right next to each other)...and a lot of us did the same excursions. Some people we barely saw, and that was fine as well.

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We just got back from our wedding at sea aboard the Crown Princess and (although we didn't have a formal reception) the price tag came in just under $15,000 for everything (dress, drinks, excursions, spending money, EVERYTHING.)

 

No matter what anyone says you DO NOT have to pay for anyone to cruise but yourselves. $45,000 to take other people on vacation is just ludicrous if you ask me. Those who want to cruise will do it (and pay for themselves), those who don't will still have the option of attending the ceremony if you do it on embarkation day.

 

I agree that you should call, call and call again until you get to someone who will help you but I DON'T agree that it should have to cost you an arm and a leg to have your dream cruise wedding.

 

Oh, and for the record, my "daddy" did contribute the cost of the ceremony and a meal in one of the specialty restaurants but we paid for a good portion of it ourselves. Now we're back and married with ZERO wedding debt and all of the $ we were given as wedding gifts safely in our bank account to use to plan our next cruise.

 

We had no intention paying for our guests to sail with us. That is just crazy! We hope to get about 25 people to cruise with us, but have informed every single person that they are more than welcome to sail with us and keep the party going for 7 days! My fiance and I are booked in a forward facing penthouse which has access to the Haven so we can be secluded when we want to be ;)

Everything seems to be going well so far with TWE. I still haven't received confirmation yet, but I was told it can take several days so I am not worried.

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We had no intention paying for our guests to sail with us. That is just crazy! We hope to get about 25 people to cruise with us, but have informed every single person that they are more than welcome to sail with us and keep the party going for 7 days! My fiance and I are booked in a forward facing penthouse which has access to the Haven so we can be secluded when we want to be ;)

Everything seems to be going well so far with TWE. I still haven't received confirmation yet, but I was told it can take several days so I am not worried.

 

My daughters land wedding cost $50,000, that's what happens when you send out invitations for a celebration. You don't ask your guest to pay for your party!!!:eek:

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My daughters land wedding cost $50,000, that's what happens when you send out invitations for a celebration. You don't ask your guest to pay for your party!!!:eek:

 

 

Asking guests to pay for YOUR party (i.e. wedding, reception, cocktail party, rehearsal dinner, etc.) is entirely different than asking them to pay for THEIR own vacation!! Especially with embarkation weddings where they have the option to attend the wedding but not go on the cruise. We're paying for most of one member of our wedding party's flight/hotel/tux expenses to get to the wedding because it's important to us that he be there, but we definitely couldn't afford to also pay for a week long cruise for him.

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My daughters land wedding cost $50,000, that's what happens when you send out invitations for a celebration. You don't ask your guest to pay for your party!!!:eek:

 

We aren't asking our guests to pay for our party. :eek:

We are paying for our reception on board the ship and those who want to sail with us are given the option but have to pay for their vacation. All of our friends and family live in the tri-state area so they can come to the reception and leave before the ship sails. ( just like a normal land wedding!) I don't really understand people's inability to grasp the concept of a cruise ship wedding.

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My daughters land wedding cost $50,000, that's what happens when you send out invitations for a celebration. You don't ask your guest to pay for your party!!!:eek:

 

To each his/her own, but I agree with you. Since we are now having our wedding after the ship leaves port, we are subsidizing the cost of the cruise for the majority of our guests. We feel it was important 1) to ensure their attendance and 2) because no one should have to pay excessive amounts of money to come to our wedding. The second we hatched this plan, we knew that we'd be paying for our guests and we are happy to. The upside is that it'll cost us half of what a "land" wedding in our area and we still get our intimate dream wedding.

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To each his/her own, but I agree with you. Since we are now having our wedding after the ship leaves port, we are subsidizing the cost of the cruise for the majority of our guests. We feel it was important 1) to ensure their attendance and 2) because no one should have to pay excessive amounts of money to come to our wedding. The second we hatched this plan, we knew that we'd be paying for our guests and we are happy to. The upside is that it'll cost us half of what a "land" wedding in our area and we still get our intimate dream wedding.

 

I agree with you here. I would feel guilty making my guests pay to attend my wedding. This is why we decided just to get married in port. That way our guests aren't forced to pay for a vacation to attend our wedding; they can come to the ceremony/reception and leave.

I am very lucky to have amazing friends and family that are willing to cruise with us afterwards, but paying for them all on a 7 night cruise out of nyc on a brand new ship is way out of my budget.

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Good luck with all of your planning. We planned our wedding cruise about 18 months in advance. We had to wait for thr cruise line to release dates, but since we knew what we were planning, we informed our very close and families way head of time so that they had time to prepare as well. We were in a bit of a spot with trying to find something out of ny. 8 days was just too long. So, we decided to head north instead on a 5 day to Canada from NYC. This way, it saved airfare and a lot of travel. A new ship is fantastic!,, you are lucky!,,,

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Worth noting that someone here on the boards (msg102711 See this page of the "Favors?" thread http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=30721747#post30721747) was able to get Carnival to up her non-sailing guest allowance to 70 non-sailing guests just by asking. So Carnival will be flexible with you -- can't hurt to ask!

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We did the same... we had 53 people sail and 83 at the reception. They paid for their own cruise. Those that could not afford the cruise met us at Key West for the wedding and reception and got off the ship before it sailed off. We paid for the wedding, transportation to the wedding and back to the ship, and reception. Of course invitations gift bags etc. BUt it was just so much cheaper than if I had done a wedding on land. People had no problem booking for a 6 day cruise and many used it to celebrate annviersaries, birthdays, graduations etc. The wedding is a separate cost from the cruise! Its no different than a land wedding... you dont pay for everyone's plane tickets to fly in, their hotels and meals if they come days before. You pay for the wedding only.

 

And FYI We did do the wedding and EVERYTHING else on our own. Not only was it way cheaper but less of a head ache and more unique. Also we wanted a church wedding. We only used them for the wedding reception which onbviously included cake, toast etc.

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